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The Legend of Heroes' Trails series can be a difficult one for new fans to break into. Not only do many story threads carry over across a dozen games and counting, but major entries like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Trails from Zero are only just now receiving official English translations. Beyond all that, however, is the undeniable fact that to some﷽, the visuals and combat appear woefully dated.
With our coverage as your guide, we'll do our best to show you the ropes on the battling side. Hopefully, you'll come away from this reading with a greater appreciation for what is a pretty fun system — once you've got a feel for it.
Speed And Movement
After a short flash-forward with a powered-up party, your first real taste of battle comes a tad later, as the newly-met quartet of soon-to-be Special Support Section officers is sent into the maze-like Geofront. Here, Trails from Zero does an admirable job going over a few things with each new enemy encounter. But let's go deeper.
Per our above screenshot, note that orbal arts are the only productive way in which to defeat certain foes. Casting arts, however, takes time; the amount of time involved is proportionate to a character's speed stat. In fact, it's fair to say that more often than not, speed is arguably the single most important stat your characters will have. The longer a♕ casting of orbal arts takes, the l♑onger a character is standing around defenselessly, just waiting to get hit.
We'll talk more about orbal arts in a bit, but for now, let's mention the move stat. Trails from Zero, like the Trails in the Sky trilogy before it as well as Zero's direct sequel Trails to Azure utilizes an isometric battlefield upon which both allies and enemies must traverse en route✃ to trading blows. As is the case with most isometric battle systems, it can be advantageous to place your defensively weaker characters further back on the grid and your stronger ones forward.
A character's move stat dictates how many tiles they can cross on a given turn. This is not only useful for getting up close for physical attacks and out of the way of a foe's own physical strikes; at times, your opponents will begin orbal arts casts of their own, and it's wise to get everyone out of the area of effect if time permits (or, if it's a single-target art, prepare for the targeted character to suffer the blow whilst moving everyone else away).
Scoping And Casting
By the way, take care not to waste your characters' turns moving across the map toward an enemy that won't be in range afterward. Rarely will this prove useful, and you'll simply be that much closer for them to smack you on their next action.
There are two ways to scan your enemies in Trails from Zero. The first is a craft of Tio's called Analyze. For 20 Craft Points, Tio surveys a single creature, learning its orbal weaknesses (elemental affinity; the lower the number, the stronger against it the creature is, whereas a high number of up to 200 means they're exceptionally susceptible); HP; item and sepith drops; and a bit of lore.
The other approach is to use a Battle Scope, a one-time use consumable item that costs a reasonable 100 Mira and does the same thing as Tio without an associated Craft Point cost. We advise keeping a good stock of at least ten of these every time you enter a new area, funds permitting.
Why is scanning so important in Trails from Zero? Well, for one thing, you'll snag modest amounts of Mira from one of the receptionists at the Crossbell Police Department over time apropos to the number of foes you have analyzed. (There's also an achievement for scanning every single enemy in the game, though we recommend against sweating over this until New Game Plus).
More importantly, however, scanning is the key way to discern which orbal arts to use. Tio's multi-target, ADF (magic-based rather than physical) normal attack can be handy in a pinch, but she's always going to rule with orbal arts. Elie is also quite adept with orbal arts. Basically, it's a good idea to have both of them rely upon those on the regular if you're struggling with battle encounters.
Spells And S-Crafts
In addition to normal attacks and orbal arts, there are a few more categories of offensive and defensive abilities. The first, crafts, are unique to each of Trails from Zero's four main party members; the aforementioned Analyze for Tio is one such craft, while others can inflict damage, heal allies, or provide buffs — essentially, these are solid stand-ins for similarly-minded orbal arts that consume Craft Points rather than Energy Points.
You can use crafts so long as the character in question has enough Craft Points for them, and they'll be learned automatically as the team's levels rise throughout the game.
Don't underestimate the usefulness of stat-boosting arts and crafts. Trails from Zero isn't the most difficult role-playing game in the world, per se, but some fights are clearly designed to compel players to utilize buffs and debuffs to good effect.
To improve the orbal arts (spells) a character can access, you must mix and match their Quartz accordingly. Quartz is, as you'll quickly learn in-game, the equippable magic-based items that enable orbal arts. Over time, you will find higher-tier forms for common Quartz types like Attack, Defense, and Move; plenty of Quartz comes in a singular tier, however.
The number of elemental shards per Quartz color that a character has equipped at a given time corresponds to the relative strength of their equipped Quartz. That's a fairly confusing concept to wrap one's head around without visual context, perhaps — here's what we mean. Note that this particular color/element's arts, like all other colors, are each unlocked based on shard combination totals.
It's interesting how a few of Fire's possible spells require blends with other shard colors as well, right? All the more reason to be considerate of your Quartz lineups. Equipping a few Fire Quartzes and a couple of Wind Quartzes will provide the powerful Flare Butterfly, for example.
Last but not least, S-Crafts, like crafts, are unique to each character. Unlike crafts, which cost between 10 and 90 or so Energy Points apiece, S-Crafts require at least 100 Craft Points to cast. Like crafts, and unlike arts, S-Crafts do not require a casting timer. They're automatically activated upon selection.
S-Crafts can be used with 100 Craft Points, but should you elect to build up to the maximum of 200 before using them, they will gain in power and/or capability. Elie's S-Craft, for example, will either partly heal the party within a given area of effect at 100 or completely heal them at 200.
Securing The Advantage
In the Trails series, enemies are visible in the field before battle commences. If you're spotted, and they ram into you, they'll ambush you, which lets them surround your party and attack before you can act. A more casual bumping-into of your own volition will provide no ill or good effects; hitting a foe from the front will daze them a little and give you an early edge; doing so from behind without being seen nets a full preemptive bonus.
If you've followed our advice earlier about prioritizing the speed stat and keeping up with it through relevant shoes, accessories, and similar wares, a preemptive bonus will not only let your team go first (and score nice criticals when doing so), but they'll get two, perhaps even three full turns in before the enemy can so much as react.
There's also a high chance that the battle bar will land on Team-Up in one of your characters' first turns. Unless you're fighting what seems to be a rare new enemy and need to scan them, there is otherwise seldom any reason not to let a Team-Up trigger when asked to do so. Against somewhat weak enemies, this is a one-hit kill for the entire enemy group. Even when that doesn't happen, you'll have likely carved off a goodly amount of Health Points, meaning the rest of the fight will fly by.
In addition to Team-Up, which isn't particularly common outside preemptive strike opportunities, there are other places for the battle bar to land upon. This rotates every action, meaning each character and enemy will land on something, every time.
Granted, the most common thing to lan🐭d on is, well, nothing. But there are other han✤dy boosts, including small HP refreshes, an increase in sepith gained if you fell an enemy and guaranteed critical hits without the need of Team-Up.